Ars is looking at Google even as Google is looking at ars (and everyone else).
Or something.
Should you, wary reader, become overwhelmed* with Alphabet and have an interest in the metal umlaut we'll have a couple links after the jump.

*Seriously. Just look at the table of contents.
Now would Mssr. et Madame care for an ümläüt?

From ars technica:

Android N, a big VR program, Google Glass, and lots more are in store for Alphabet.

It's that time of the year again—welcome to the Google Tracker! This
is a bi-annual series where we recap every ongoing project (that we know
about, at least) inside of Google's sprawling empire.

Though from now on, perhaps we should say, "Every ongoing project inside of Alphabet'ssprawling
empire." "Google" is now a mere company inside of "Alphabet," the newly
formed umbrella company created by Google's founders. Most of the
Google side projects we've been tracking in the past have been spun off
into companies inside of Alphabet, but rest assured we're still keeping
track of everything.

As always, the Tracker is a big roundup of previous announcements, rumors, and a bit of speculation. The 2015entries
worked out well—the Chromecast 2, Google On, Google Photos, YouTube
Gaming, and tons of Android features were represented. We can't promise
everything listed here will be released in 2016, but this is certainly a
running list of everything we've heard about. If you've been slacking
all of 2015 and not paying attention to the news, consider this your
"Google CliffsNotes" for the upcoming year.

The Alphabet Empire
2015 saw Google transform from a single company packed with side
projects into a Berkshire Hathaway-style "company full of companies"
known as "Alphabet." So what exactly is inside of Alphabet? An 8-K form
filed during the initial Alphabet announcement flagged "search, ads,
maps, apps, YouTube, Android and the related technical infrastructure,"
as "Google." Calico, Nest, Google Fiber, Google Ventures, Google
Capital, and Google X were all identified as individual companies inside
of Alphabet.

That list leaves out a ton of Google projects, though, so there is
certainly more to Alphabet than what was initially revealed. We've
compiled the above chart from news and reliable sources from around the
Web, and we've tacked a few more companies onto Google's original list:

Verily is the new name for Google Life Sciences. The group just got a rebrand and a snazzy new website. This group is working on Baseline Study, the smart contact lens, and a wrist computer that reads diagnostic nanoparticles injected in the bloodstream. Life Sciences is not to be confused with Alphabet's other healthcare company, Calico, which is "only" out to "cure death" with anti-aging research.

Sidewalk Labs, a group that wants to apply moonshot thinking to city life, took Google's Calico model and started off with its own CEO. Google told The Wall Street Journalthat Sidewalk Labs is a separate Alphabet company.

DeepMind, an artificial intelligence group, is also a company under Alphabet according to this report from The Information.

The division for Google X's Self-Driving Car (also a robot) recently had someone appointed as "CEO." It's expected to be spun off into an Alphabet company in 2016, but for now it's still part of Google X.

Google Fiber is not a top-level Alphabet company. It's been rolled into Access and Energy, a Google division formed in 2014. You can hear Alphabet's CFO, Ruth Porat, mention this in the latest earnings report. Access and Energy is also home to the Google OnHub router and the Titan Drones.

We're also adding ATAP to the "Google" section since it seems
like it should be an Alphabet company given that Regina Dugan, the
former head of DARPA, is running it. For now, Google recently confirmed
to Mashable that it is still part of Google proper. The full name of the unit is "Google Advanced Technology and Products."

Google recently announced
it was condensing its cloud businesses into a single unit led by Diane
Greene, co-founder and CEO of VMWare. Is this a new division inside of
Google or Alphabet? Does it have a name? We have no idea. Starting a new
division with a superstar CEO definitely seems like the same
model that created Calico, Sidewalk Labs, Replicant, and Verily, but we
haven't heard of a name or anything official.

As Google's "moonshot factory," Google X houses a number of projects
that seem like they could one day be Alphabet companies. A
representative told us the group is in charge of Project Wing, Replicant
(Google's robot division), and Google Self-Driving Cars, and this MIT Technology Review
article says Google X is still in charge of Project Loon. Makani,
Google's power-generating kit project, also seems to be part of Google
X.

Update: We updated the above section a bit. Based on
prior reports, we originally pegged Project Wing, Replicant, and Google
Self-Driving Cars as Alphabet companies, but a Google X rep reached out
to us and claimed ownership of all of them. Alphabet's exact layout is
still very speculative, and we're hoping we'll get more official
information during Google/Alphabet's next earnings call....

In a move designed to make Uber seem more "bad-assed and
scary in a quasi-heavy-metal manner," the Goldman Sachs, Menlo Ventures
and Bezos Expeditions-backed company officially changed it's name to
Über on Monday.

"Much like Mötley
Crüe and Motörhead, Über is not to be messed with," said
founder Gärrëtt Cämp, né Camp...